


Strange Twist of Fate

by thegoodthebadandthenerdy



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale's Bookshop, Post-Canon, Writing Exercise, moreso book canon bc i havent seen the show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-29 15:28:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19403158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegoodthebadandthenerdy/pseuds/thegoodthebadandthenerdy
Summary: It must have been a strange twist of fate,Telling me that Heaven can wait.-Or: another Sunday in which they get it right this time.





	Strange Twist of Fate

**Author's Note:**

> 100% i spite wrote this and i'll probably never write gomens again but i'll be damned if i don't love how this came out. it was equal parts me wanting to play with a writing style akin to the book's and losing my mind over the twist of fate chorus gksjfks
> 
> title and summary and inspiration from olivia newton john's ICONIC song twist of fate

**ANOTHER SUNDAY**

Aziraphale had, against all odds, gotten rather used to the new inventory of his shop. 

It had taken time, of course, lots of little adjustments, but he had managed. He mourned his prophecy books like lost friends, his sweetened leatherbound tomes, his frail first editions from the time when their were never more than one edition, but just as was with any loss, time healed the skin of the wound.

He had found, actually, that there was something quite nice in the children's literature he now found himself surrounded by. A great sense of hope was imbued within each poky puppy and silly old bear.

And despite his best efforts, he had surpassed fondness for his new charges, and instead found himself quite taken by each illustrated page and out of tune rhyme scheme, which meant that he was at least able to keep his rule of maintaining stock only in exponential capacities.

(This practice disgruntled far many more people than it had in the past, but that was the way the golden ticket gifted, it seemed.)

Of course, this meant that Aziraphale was rather the lone wolf these days--though that comparison humored him to no end--sometimes going more than a bit without hide or hair of another soul to be seen in his delightful little bubble.

This, though, was the thing he hadn't quite taken to as well as he had in the grand scheme Before.

Before, actually, was something that Aziraphale contemplated quite a lot now. Unsurprisingly, he had the time for it, what with all his free hours being filled with nothing but cataloguing his new stock and making his way through mug after mug of cocoa.

Still, it was rather embarrassing how much of his time was spent on certain aspects of certain types of Before--and, to an extent, their respective Afters.

It's confusing business; time, that is. Made all the more fumbling when one introduces in things like notions and feelings and well perhapses when one has spent more than a few millennia amongst humans and still not fully grasped the finer nuances of such concepts.

But Aziraphale had all this time, you see, and so he was determined to sort as much out as he could on his own, just for the sake of the thing.

Some would say he was a stubborn bastard, this was not wholly incorrect. Some would say he needed to just get on with it, really, it had been long enough and he hadn't even come much closer to his supposed conclusions than he'd been to begin with, this was not entirely bad advice.

Because really, Aziraphale wasn't sure what it was he was trying to figure out anymore. It was as if his mind was one balloon rubbing against another thought-balloon and they were unleashing unholy squeaks and maybe a spot of electricity, but not really anything more than that.

He did, however, know that it was to do with Crowley, and certain well perhapses as they applied to him, and maybe if _that_ stubborn bastard would show his face around, then they could be stubborn bastards, but together, in one another's company, and Aziraphale wouldn't be left to ponder why it was, exactly, he hadn't seen one lock of red hair or one bit of saunter in weeks-

And oh, right, of course. (It hit him not unlike divine intervention.)

He missed him.

Suddenly, those Befores and Afters seemed to slip their ways together and it all made sense in a natural sort of way that should have come to him much sooner. 

He pressed his lips together, still adjusting to the way they sat now--it wasn't that they weren't exactly the same as Before he'd gone through his great game of telephone wire, it was just that he'd forgotten the set of his own being and among all his other readjustments, he'd forgotten to get back to those--and hmphed slightly through both his mouth and his nose at the same, which was both quite the feat and a testament to his newly ruffled state.

Aziraphale didn't often find himself exasperated. Joyous, yes; contented, much so; worried, only every time it rained and the leaks in the roof puttered about like overly comfortable house guests. Exasperated, however, was something he usually reserved to feel at himself should a mistake arise in his bookkeeping, or maybe at Crowley if he was being generously obtuse that century.

The combination of intro- and extroverted exasperation he was currently employed under, however, was quite new in all accounts.

For one, in was mixed with a bit of disappointment that tasted like a tea he'd once tried that boasted floral flavorings and instead ended up going down like water drained from a lavender-colored pothole. If time was confusing business, then disappointment was its nasty cousin twice removed that got disowned by Granpapa.

It should be noted for all accounts that Aziraphale was not, in fact, disappointed in himself in this particular moment. This was notable only for the fact that Aziraphale had not been disappointed in another being since some unfortunate business with a Renaissance painter in the late 1300s.

It should also be noted that Aziraphale was calling this feeling disappointment, and while true, he was also feeling what he would leave unnamed, but was undoubtedly hurt.

"That just won't do," he said aloud to himself, looking up from the books stacked high in front of him. (Adam Young, while a brilliant boy in his own right, was not fond of alphabetizing, which drove Aziraphale a certain type of mad.)

If he were anyone else, he might ignore the fact that he had a phone or even a memory of phone numbers to begin with, but he was getting rather good at this brazen thing, and so he crossed the backroom to the landline he still kept mounted to the wall, and tried very hard not to think of all the terrible things that could very well have happened to his best and greatest- friend.

"Right," he said, looking at the rotary dial, hands clammy despite the fact that they weren't exactly supposed to give, or actually be capable of, that particular glandular response. "Right," he repeated.

He could continue to say 'right' for far longer than there were pages to print it.

"Well then," he finally said some time later, turning on his heel. "Quite enough of that."

The key was that he was _getting_ good at the brazen business, not that he currently _was_ , and quite frankly he didn't want to be in this moment or the next.

Because it could be, of course, that Crowley didn't answer the phone, and was currently being made into roast beast and served by something far more atrocious than a Grinch.

It could also just as well be that Armageddon was over, and Crowley had found other things to do than hang around a shabby shop full of shabby books and an out of touch angel in Soho.

Well. That was a depressing thought.

It was actually moments before that had occurred to him, during the great 'right, right, right' spiel of current year, that the knocking had started at the door of the shop, but it was in this precise moment that Aziraphale actually realized someone was knocking at heaven's door, as it was.

He'd found that if you stayed quiet enough, even the most determined of shoppers would give up and move on after a few minutes. This was not the normal determined shopper. (This was not a shopper at all.)

He meandered into the front of the shop after five minutes of the incessant knocking--patience is a virtue, and he isn't supposed to be in the business of vices, you know--and did his best to peep out the blinds without alerting the no doubt angry would-be customer outside.

It was only once he realized that he couldn't see the person--still tapping away--that he finally gave in and undid the deadbolt if only to ask them in a very, very pleasant manner to please leave his door on the hinges, thank you kindly.

He got, all things considered, more than he'd bargained for.

"You did that on purpose," he said, lips twisting into a frown, eyes cutting in a way that left no room for argument or excuse.

Crowley, for his part, didn't visibly flinch. Then again, tinted sunglasses really do work all kinds of wonders.

"I'd thought you were- that you'd gone off and- or found yourself- you know," Aziraphale explained earnestly as he stepped back into the expanse of the shop, albeit with a flintlock look to his eyes once he took in the casual wellbeing of the demon before him.

Crowley slunk in behind him looking like the cat who caught the canary only to find it was a particularly mean-spirited blue jay, which was to say extremely embarrassed and slightly pained.

"There's a lot of paperwork that goes into even a failed end of days, you know," he tried, as if Aziraphale believed he had given a tenth of a second to the thought of any kind of paperwork that went into an interrupted Armageddon _or_ would think that joke was funny.

"Mm, yes, of course," he said, and while he had gone for an icy inflection, it came out fairly lukewarm. 

"Aziraphale," Crowley trailed, idly thumbing at a stray copy of _Matilda_ , his shoulders tight.

"If you don't have anything other to say, I'm working, you know, lots of work to do."

He'd be lying if he said he hoped Crowley took the hint, and there was that business about vices, so.

"'ve actually been trying to work out what to say, you know. Lots of words out there, not all of them great--you should add some dictionaries to the collection," he switched topics in a way that was supposed to sound languid, but came out as tense as the line of his shoulders.

Aziraphale sniffed. "Used to have a few."

"Right." He patted the cover of Matilda, smoothing out a small roll at the corner of it. "Have you eaten?"

"Crowley, really," Aziraphale started. "It's been-" he faltered, hands squirming at his sides. His hands hadn't felt right at all after snapping back to his body.

"I know," Crowley said, though is sounded rather like pleading, even though he hadn't gotten to that part of his speech yet. He hadn't gotten to any part of his speech yet. "That's me, all of it. I should've called, but I thought you'd have, er, company, you know, for a bit, at least, but I still wanted to- I should have."

Immediately, "Yes, you should have."

Then, "And I haven't had any company. I expected them, of course, but no one ever came. Been rather lonely." Though that last part was an afterthought and wasn't supposed to make it past the first draft.

"Oh."

They were then locked in the stalemate of two people who had a lot of very important things to say to one another, but hadn't a clue how to start or if they even should. In this instance, they really, really should, and they both knew it.

"And even if I did," Aziraphale said steadily, chanting a small _buck up!_ to himself as he leveled his eyes on Crowley. "I'd have much rather have seen you."

Crowley's smile was slow, but it was appropriately jaunty and lop-sided for the moment. 

In the spirit of honesty and truth, Aziraphale had known he was in love for a very long time. He hadn't been ready for that, but he knew. There had always been a war on the horizon, and a child to protect, and a world to keep in order, and as he saw it, wars and protection and order always came with casualties.

In the spirit of confession, Crowley too had known that he was in love (though technically, when one checks the minutes, Aziraphale knew first) and had thought he was ready for that. He lived and decided in spite of war and protection and order.

It was only once all those things were out of the way that they realized they had some figuring to, well, figure. Aziraphale had done his just in sight of seclusion, and Crowley had taken his like a pill and gone on an oddly family-friendly bender.

But now their time had run out, and they had decisions to make and things to say to one another and it was all very touching, if a bit slow-moving.

" _Have_ you eaten?" Crowley asked again, head tipped to the side, glasses gone from one blink to the next. 

Aziraphale smiled too, quick and nimble. 

For all these years of not saying what was on their minds, they had gotten pretty good at other forms of communication--mostly wiggly eyebrows and unimpressed lips--and it was easy now, to find the underlying meanings.

They should say these things out loud, of course, and in their own time they would, but after millennia of being unable to do so, this was enough for the both of them.

"No, Crowley, I haven't."

In the second between one breath and the other, Crowley's sleeves rolled up his arms, but his hands found themselves still limp by his sides. He looked, for the first time in a long time, comfortable. "I was thinking takeaway," he explained.

"Good. I was rather hoping you'd stay."

"Angel, I'm staying as long as you like."

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on tumblr @johnnystormbisexual for pride month but once july hits i'll be back to @foxmulldr so feel free to come hmu!!


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